When your online business gets interrupted

The Facebook 6 Hour Shutdown and what it can teach business the importance of having backup processes

For six hours Facebook, the largest social network in the world, was shut worldwide. Headlines around the world reported the shock and confusion of the hundreds of millions of people and businesses who were unable to use what they considered to be ‘the internet.’ As the news came out on what happened, it came to highlight a fundamental flaw in their operation methods that made the problem worse than it needed to be. It makes for a very good lesson that can teach businesses small and large on why having backup systems for all their processes is vital for their business.

While it’s beyond the scope of this blog to pick apart the full series of events, let’s do a quick review. How could such a massive IT company have such a major failure in their operations. Fundamentally they relied on their own systems, the Facebook system that we all interact with, to run every part of their operations for everything. What took it off line was a simple error of their systems not notifying the computers that direct all internet traffic where the FB computers  could be found. When that happened all of their servers could no longer be connected to by any device outside of them. Normally this isn’t a problem as most web service providers have alternative systems to allow access if their main ones become invisible to let them fix problems like that. Facebook did not.

All of Facebook’s operations are managed on Facebook. They even go as far as managing their physical security systems with it, so no one’s key cards could unlock doors to get into the building. And it also follows that contact information needed to reach the security companies that had the physical keys needed to get into the building was recorded on the Facebook network meaning that no one knew the numbers to reach them. A mistake that should have caused a few minutes to an hour of disruption ended up taking six hours to fix and is still causing issues in some regions in the following days..

What can this failure of one of the biggest tech companies in the world teach you as a small to medium business owner?

Do not have just one form of internet ‘location’

For a lot of smaller businesses, their Facebook page is their business on the internet. Everything they need is in one place, and I can see how it can be attractive to a lot of people. The tools are easy to use, they integrate a ‘business website site’, social media (of course), product catalogue, communication system, advertising network, and even a payment gateway. Which is great until Facebook goes away, then you’re stuck unable to do anything.

The truth is that the same simplicity can just as easily be set up on any number of platforms other than Facebook. Using any one of the many hosting providers, and the help of a marketing company, such as us at Copy Express, you can get it up and running in a short time. The site will have a lot of the same systems that you can find on the Facebook setup. There are plenty of ready made templates for creating all types of business websites complete with integrated communication and comercerse systems. And the cost of doing so on an independent platform can be almost as low cost and easy to manage as doing it on Facebook. (Remember, FB’s free services are in fact paid for by advertising and the data they harvest from your business and your customers that they sell to other companies.) While it’s not as ‘point and click’ as using FB it does have more flexibility to let you customize your site to fit your needs exactly.

Don’t rely on one system for people to contact you

If they can’t reach you, you won’t be doing business with them. I know it seems redundant to say that, but a lot of people forget that basic fact. You should alway have more than one method of contact. And while facebook does seem to have a lot of different ways of providing ways for potential customers to reach a business (posts, instant messaging, mail, voice, video chat) they are all funneled through the same single system, so when it goes down everything is down. And if you rely on that same system to list every way that you can be reached then you’re in trouble if you do have other ways of being contacted outside that one platform and no one can find that information.

While most businesses have mobile phones as their main means of contact, not every customer is able to or wants to use that. Depending on the type of business you’re in, it may require the sending of complex information, booking of appointments, etc. So you need such services as email or internet messaging. In this pandemic world, having a video chat system available is also useful these days for all kinds of business. A builder could have a client do a live video walk through of an area they wanted worked while the builder is on another site for example. All of this can be added to your website with either free or very low cost services from many different companies. And there is no reason why you can’t use more than one, giving more ways for people to reach you in the system they prefer.

Have physical systems to back up your digital operations

There is this big drive to have everything on ‘the cloud’ to run everything in a business. And there are a lot of good reasons to do so. There’s a level of flexibility to accessing your systems from anywhere on any device. What people tend to forget is that ‘the cloud’ is just a computer, in one of many racks of computers in a building somewhere. If your cloud host has a problem like a server fire, or they lose their connection because someone cut through their fiber cable. That could take your connection offline for a time. If your site isn’t considered to be important enough to have been backed on several locations, then you no longer have the cloud or your business during that time. If that same host loses the systems or your data, then you have no business full stop.

While the risk of that happening is very low if you’re using a reputable provider, it never hurts to have physical versions of the process you use when you lose physical backups to the digital is a practical solution to handle the situation. Notepads and job sheets to track jobs, No Carbon Required books for invoices, receipt sheets for till transactions, and so on. Working with a specialist small print company like us at Copy Express we can create personalized versions of all that material including serial numbers so that they can fit in to your accounting system.

Have it written down in a step by step guide with the material already on hand

If you have already prepared for interruption of business due to events such as fire or earthquakes, then you should already know what physical and digital systems you need to keep your business running. Nothing worse than getting stressed out on what to do when something goes wrong with your online business portal. But if you wrote it all down first then you can just follow the steps and be sure not to miss anything out in the process. This guide should also include a step by step guide on what to do when the online system returns and you have to get things back to normal. Print it out in physical form, several copies if you have different locations or are mobile business, even get them laminated and bound in a book so that way no matter what the conditions are you’re ready to go. Also make sure that others know how to find the guides and how to follow it, as there is no guarantee you’ll be available to sort it out when things go wrong. (Copy Express can produce these books for a low price so you can be sure that everyone has a copy that needs it.)

When you’re back online

You should also include processes that allow you to take the work you did complete outside of your normal situation and add it back when things are back to normal. This may mean having to reenter information on to your online system from physical copy, rolling back temporary changes to your digital systems, or even just simply sending out emails and social media posts letting everyone know you’re back to normal operations. Having the planned out procedures to do that, and allowing time for it to happen is part of the planning process for such events

Expect that will be an interruption of your online aspect of your business

Sooner or later you’ll be subject to your online part of your business being interrupted. The reasons can be many and varied. By having a well planned backup setup of both alternative processes for both online and physical use, you can both carry on with as little disruption to your business as possible.

Where to go from here? Why not have a chat with us at Copy Express. We can show you how easy it is to improve the robustness of your online presence and the real world items that can give you an extra level of protection.